Community Orders

Philip Davies: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice how many people currently serving community sentences are deemed to be high risk by the Probation Service; and how many people serving community sentences have been deemed to be high risk by the Probation Service in each of the last three years.

Crispin Blunt: Data on how many offenders currently serving community sentences have been assessed as high/very high risk of serious harm are not held centrally. Data for the financial year 2010-11 will be available in the summer. Figures for the last three financial years are available and are set out in the following table. The table presents, for each financial year, the number of offenders subject to a community order or suspended sentence order (Criminal Justice Act 2003) who have been assessed as presenting a high or very risk high risk of serious harm. The assessment of risk of serious harm is made through the Offender Assessment System (OASys). The data are drawn from administrative IT systems and are subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale assessment and recording system.
	
		
			High/very high risk of serious harm (community) 
			  Financial year  Number of assessments  Number  Percentage 
			 2007-08 139,826 5,814 4.2 
			 2008-09 189,457 6,660 3.5